Just the FAQ's

What is the Focus of seattle fair growth?

​This year's focus is on HALA recommendations and their adoption in the Seattle Comprehensive Plan. The plan is about land use.​Homelessness, while clearly a crisis, is less about land use and more about human services and city, state and federal revenue. The HALA recommended a strategy to create 20,000 affordable units, of which only 6,000 would be affordable to those with incomes of less than 30% of AMI, including homeless persons. No one is suggesting that only 6,000 households would qualify for very low-income housing. In fact, the need has been figured at over 40,000 households with incomes less than 30% of AMI who all need subsidized housing.

what is hala?

​The Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) was a task force called together by Mayor Ed Murray in 2015, to develop an agenda for increasing the affordability and availability of housing in our city. Twenty-four of the 28 members were developers or planners, both for-profit and non-profit. Community representation was very limited.

The City’s plan for community involvement in the HALA recommendations as they move through the City Council in 2016 is to create five Community Involvement Focus Groups. Unlike 20 years ago, there is no plan to involve community councils in planning decisions.

what is affordability?

The federal HUD standard for rental housing affordability is a housing cost (rent + utilities) that does not exceed 30% of a household's gross income. The average household size in Seattle is 1.7 persons. All housing affordability is relative to the size of the household:

AMI is the acronym for Area Median Income. The median household income in the Seattle area (half the households made more money, half less) was $89,600 in 2015. It increased $5,000 over the prior year because of the increase in tech jobs, and because lower-income households were leaving. AMI is important because it is the standard measure of affordability in housing policy.

Affordable housing programs define housing needs as:

0 – 30% of AMI, up to $18,840 for one person, rent up to $471, requiring subsidies and supportive services, representing chronically homeless persons, seniors and people with disabilities living on Social Security

31 – 60% of AMI, up to $37,680 per person or $43,020 for two people, with rent up to $1,008 for a 1-bedroom apartment. Some older buildings in some parts of Seattle offer moderate rents, but new buildings must be subsidized or incentivized to be affordable.

61 – 80% of AMI, up to $50,420 for a single person, $57,360 for two people, with rent up to about $1,300 for two people. In Seattle, buildings about 40 to 50 years old offer such “naturally affordable” rents. While not eligible for subsidized rent, some families qualify for city low-income homeownership programs at this income level.

what happened to livability

The HALA did not define livability (except in reference to access to transit). It is important that we define it. Livability must balance growth, and that infrastructure must be provided alongside, not as an afterthought to growth.

We believe livability includes:

Access to frequent, dependable transit

Walkable neighborhoods, defined as having sidewalks with stores, parks, libraries and community centers within a 15-minute walk

Public safety, including safety from property and violent crimes

A robust urban tree canopy

Parks, open spaces and P-patches, including sports fields and passive uses

Safe places to bike, with access to trails

Stores, small businesses, a variety of restaurants

Adequate parking for homes and businesses

Adequate drainage and protection of watersheds

The arts and cultural activities

What about home ownership?

We acknowledge that Seattle is becoming (has become) unaffordable for many homeowners and those who want to become homeowners. With tech employers adding thousands of jobs each year, vacant lots few and far between and prices much lower than in Silicon Valley, Seattle house prices will continue to escalate. An overall increase in density appears inevitable to accommodate the 120,000 additional residents, 50,000 additional households projected in the Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan.

What is workforce housing?

​Workforce housing is usually defined by Seattle and King County as housing for those making 60% of AMI, or at least $37,680 for one person ($18/hr) and up. This omits virtually all service-sector workers making $12 to $17.90/hr. Workforce housing may be owned by nonprofit or for-profit developers.

We believe that workforce housing programs should be aimed at those in the workforce who can’t afford the rent, that is, between minimum wage (often forced part-time) and a living wage. This can be equated to 30% - 60% of AMI. We believe that people of all incomes should be able to live in all parts of Seattle, that people should be able to live near where they work, and that mixed-income communities are better than stratified communities. Workforce housing should always include easy access to transit.

What about affordable family housing?

​Seattle is not family-friendly. We have the second-lowest family size in the U.S., after San Francisco. We have more dogs than children. How can we attract families?

The recent apartment-building boom has included virtually no units of 3 bedrooms or more, because developers make more money on 2 bedrooms plus a studio. Families who need three bedrooms must rent a house. Twenty percent of single-family homes are rentals.

Seattle needs to encourage family-size units in multi-family rental housing. A 2014 City Council study recommended, among other things, changing the definition of low-rise zones to family zones, with duplexes, triplexes, town houses, row houses, courtyard buildings and stacked apartments. These zones can and should surround urban villages and hubs as a step-down to single-family zones.

What is concurrency? How do impact fees work?

In this context, we are using concurrency to mean that publicly owned infrastructure (bridges, roads, transportation, schools, parks, and utilities) should keep up with the rate of new housing and commercial development.

To achieve concurrency of growth and infrastructure, the Growth Management Act of 1990 (GMA) gave cities the option of charging developer impact fees to pay for that infrastructure specifically caused by growth. The GMA authorizes impact fees to pay for schools (most commonly), parks, roads (not transit or sidewalks) and fire stations/equipment. Eighty cities in WA charge impact fees. Seattle does not. We believe impact fees would help balance growth with livability.

In Seattle, the Central District became home to a majority African American population and the locus of black cultural institutions because it was once redlined by banks. Today, proximity to downtown has made it popular, housing costs have risen and many African American families have moved to South King County. Currently, the Central district is only 20% black and the survival of churches and other cultural institutions is threatened.

are you opposed to growth?

We value managed growth, “density done right.” This is not a question of whether growth is good or bad, nor are neighborhoods saying no to growth. Our neighborhoods right now are experiencing runaway growth under existing zoning, without the city concurrently providing for infrastructure or amenities that make density work.

Growth is being driven by the rate of new tech jobs in Seattle and the service-sector jobs needed to support them. The Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan required by the State to be adopted by the end of 2016 defines the amount of growth to be used in planning. The 2035 Comprehensive Plan largely removes the role of Neighborhood Councils from planning. Neighborhood growth goals are eliminated. There is apparently no such thing as “too much growth.”

The 2035 Comprehensive Plan requires Seattle to accommodate 70,000 more households. The Mayor has set a goal of 50,000 of these in 10 years, including 20,000 affordable to those making less than 80% of Area Median Income.

Growth is what allows Puget Sound to build out its Light Rail system, and Seattle to complete its transit systems. Light Rail will also allow residents of suburban cities to commute easily and comfortably to jobs in Seattle...in 2025.

Are you opposed to density?

​First things first. Unless we plan for and pay for infrastructure and preservation, unmanaged growth and density will continue to degrade livability. We favor balanced planning, with infrastructure offsetting density.

We favor building infrastructure concurrent with growth and density. The city needs to pause and catch up. Seattle has a backlog of over $2 billion in road, bridge and sidewalk repairs. Since they are profiting from growth, the GMA authorizes the city to share the costs of infrastructure that accompanies their projects.

Unfortunately, Seattle is almost alone in the state in not assessing such impact fees when developers pay for permits. We have a school construction crisis, we missed an opportunity to build a downtown elementary school, and we are woefully short of open space in dense neighborhoods. The HALA had no plan for preserving affordable housing while vulnerable neighborhoods are seeing displacement by new development.

The previous 2015 Comprehensive Plan established a policy that concentrated density around Seattle’s 30 Urban Villages, defined as having good transit connections within a 10-minute “walkshed,” about a quarter-mile. The HALA recommended that all Urban Villages be upzoned to at least four or five stories and that growth and density also follow major transit arterials.

In addition, single-family zones are expected to accommodate more density by adding mother-in-law apartments and backyard cottages. The requirements for off-street parking and for homeowner occupancy are major sticking points.

Livability includes infrastructure and amenities, especially parks, open space and sidewalks, that will make it easier to de-emphasize car travel and increase our use of walking, biking and transit. Until people voluntarily give up their cars, parking is part of livability and must be planned for.

Should seattle's natural areas be developed?

The State Growth Management Act protects our rural wilderness (the Cascades, etc.) from sprawl. What it doesn't do, however, is prevent cities from decimating the natural areas that exist within city limits. The need to protect the Cheesty Natural Area on the southeast flank of Beacon Hill is a prime example. Bicycle activists want to add a mountain biking course. To grow responsibly, and in alignment with the intent of the GMA, we recommend that cities NOT engage in a "race to the bottom" by competing with each other for least regulation of growth.